About me

This blogname was derived from the novel The Secret Life Of Saeed The Pessoptimist by the Palestinian Israeli Emile Habiby: absurdism as weapon against the (ir)realities of daily life in Palestine/Israel. (The subtitle is from a book by Dutch author Renate Rubinstein. It could as well be my motto).
My real name is Martin (Maarten Jan) Hijmans. I've been covering the ME since 1977 and have been a correspondent in Cairo. I started my 'Abu Pessoptimist' blog in January 2009 out of anger during the onslaught in Gaza. The other one, The Pessoptmist, is meant to be a sister version in English. (En voor de Nederlandstaligen: ik wilde in november 2009 een tweede blog in het Engels beginnen en ontdekte te laat dat als je één account hebt, een profiel dan meteen ook voor allebei de blogs geldt. Vandaar dat het nu ineens in het Engels is... So sorry.)

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Drone that overflew Israel 'beamed lots of secret information'

Iran showed an Iranian made drone during its Army Day parade on 18 April 2012. (AFP/Getty).

The Iranian-made drone shot down over the Negev last week beamed back "images of secret
Israeli military sites" and images of the preparations of the joint Israel-US military exercise, the Israeli newssite YNet (Yediot Ahronot) writes on Sunday, quoting the British Sunday Times. It appears that the flight of the drone may have been a lot more damaging than the Israeli military have been willing to admit.
Also it remains a mystery how the unmanned aircraft could have stayed as long in the air over Israel, as the Sunday Times reveals, before it finally was shot down. According to what the Sunday Times' correspondent Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv reported, the drone apparently was airborne for three hours before it was intercepted, and was able to relay "images of ballistic missile sites, main airfields and possibly the Dimona reactor.
The report also mentions a detail first reported by Yedioth Ahronoth, saying that the
first interception attempt failed and that the drone was shot down at a
second attempt.
Mahnaimi further cited an Israeli defense source saying, "How could we defend this country from thousands of rockets and missiles if we can’t block a single Iranian drone?"
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, declared on Thursday that the drone had been assembled and piloted by his movement. He called the flight an unprecedented achievement in “the history of the resistance.” In a televised, 50-minute speech Nasrallah said the drone had been designed in Iran and assembled by Hezbollah experts in Lebanon.
“It is our right to send other drones whenever we want,” he said, noting that Israel frequently violated Lebanese airspace. “It was not the first time and it will not be the last.”